Keystone protesters mark final roundup — for now

The timing wasn’t perfect, but that didn’t change the message that climate activists brought Saturday as they descended on the National Mall to protest the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

A week after the Obama administration announced yet another delay for its decision on the Canada-to-Texas project, protesters — joined by Daryl Hannah and Neil Young — marched to mark the end of Reject and Protect, a weeklong series of relatively low-key demonstrations held while Congress was out of town.

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President Barack Obama was away, too, on his Asia trip, as a crowd of around 1,000 people gathered — far less than the 5,000 that organizers had hoped for. (Organizers later maintained that “upwards of” 5,000 people had taken part by the end of the day. The Park Police do not offer crowd estimates for protests on the Mall.)

Still, the protest benefited from the star power of Hannah, who has been arrested at previous Keystone protests, and Young, who said fossil fuels are in their “first death gasps.” He said stopping pipelines like the Keystone XL would help move the country away from oil.

“We have a chance at world history,” Young said. “Everyone can be a part of reversing the trend we’ve been part of for the last 100 years and change it so we’re taking care of the planet for our grandkids.”

The weeklong protest by a group called the Cowboy Indian Alliance was originally planned to coincide with the end of the State Department’s 90-day period of reviewing whether the pipeline would be in the national interest — the last clear signal that a decision on the pipeline may be imminent. But the State Department last week said it was delaying the decision, citing the uncertainty wrought by the legal dispute over the Nebraska portion of the project’s route. A Nebraska court nullified the route as unconstitutional earlier this year, and that decision has been appealed to the Nebraska Supreme Court.

A decision on the pipeline is now unlikely to come before the midterm elections.

The delay could have made Saturday’s protest feel hollow, but supporters said their message was important, no matter where the government was in its process.

“We are not going away,” Meghan Hammond, a farmer, told the crowd. “This is a fight you brought to us five years ago. And every time you get delayed, it gives us an opportunity to speak out and tell the truth.”

That the delay came just days before the alliance rode into town was telling, said Crystal Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation of Treaty 6, an indigenous group in Alberta.

“They knew we were coming,” Lameman said. “And then they delayed it. That shows they’re listening. It sets a precedent for where this government is going when it comes to this decision.”

Art Tanderup, a Nebraska farmer who hosted a piece of #NoKXL crop art on his land, said peaceful demonstrations like this were necessary, even amid the delays, to keep the spotlight on this issue.

“No decision has been made, so we need to keep the pressure on so that the president and the public knows that this is important,” Tanderup said. “We have to teach them what this really means. It doesn’t mean more energy for us.”

The oil industry pounced on the low turnout for the week’s events.

“Despite lots of hype, the 350.org sponsored events this week in Washington DC failed to deliver large turnouts — even on Earth,” said Matt Dempsey, spokesman for Oil Sands Fact Check. “What they did show is that their real agenda is about shutting down all forms of fossil fuels. This message is clearly failing as polls released just this week show support for Keystone XL at all time high.”

Saturday’s crowd was mixed — some grandparents and high schoolers, some protesters carrying signs saying, “No KXL, No Fossil Fuel, No Climate Change,” and other passersby just stopping to see what the ruckus was about. A performer played a flute as people milled about a teepee village, taking pictures.

As part of the day’s events, the alliance marched to the National Museum of the American Indian to present staffers with a teepee representing “the Cowboy and Indian Alliance’s hopes for protected land and clean water,” organizers said. The teepee, painted by Lakota artist Steve Tamayo, features a mix of traditional and contemporary Lakota symbols and imagery that represent the Ogallala Aquifer, the Earth and the unification of the alliance, among other things, the Smithsonian said.

“The Smithsonian has an ongoing commitment to document the spirit of American democracy and the American political process, including how people express their points of view through political rallies, demonstrations and protests,” the museum said in a statement. “The [museum] is committed to documenting Native Americans’ participation in the Nation’s life.”

The Smithsonian Institution has collected materials from political conventions and campaigns, the Occupy Wall Street Movement and several documents and photographs from the American Indian Rights movement, it said. The teepee and other paraphernalia will be collected as part of the historical record, but the Smithsonian said it has no plans to display the items.